Matt of All Trades blog, like the title suggests, is by a Vermont author and offers offbeat musings on pop culture, media, journalism, humor, weirdness, stupid people, smart people, my life as a journalist, landscaper, photographer, married gay man, dog lover and weather geek and more. It's run by me, Matt Sutkoski, a native Vermonter living in St. Albans, Vt.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

This polar bear has been on display in a unnatural
enclosure in a Chinese shopping mall. It's the
height of cruelty to do this to an animal.

This is the height of animal cruelty and no wonder the world is outraged.

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿A shopping mall in China kept a polar bear on display inside the mall, with no natural light, nothing to do, no stimulation, aside from the thousands of tourists snapping photos that were blinding the bear with their camera flashes.
Under intense international pressure, the mall owners have "temporarily" removed the polar bear but promise to bring the poor thing back.

The polar bear, named Pizza, was exhibiting signs of serious mental distress, as you can well imagine.

Pizza was completely out of his element, not given any way to enjoy life. He was/is just a prop to make the mall owners money.

Pretty cruel, right?

It's obvious why this animal is now widely described in the media as "the world's saddest polar bear."

"Video footage showed Pizza pacing, rearing up on the side of his glass enclosure farthest from visitors, shaking his head from side to side, and sniffing and pawing at an air vent - distress behaviors, according to animal rights activists."

This Chinese animal welfare problem goes well beyond one polar bear in a mall.

"Animal welfare groups say shopping malls in China increasingly are using wild animals to attract customers in a bid to compete against a growing popularity of more convenient and often cheaper e-commerce. China does not have an animal welfare law. Animal welfare advocates say one is long overdue."

I'll say!

I get it that a lot of people know that there are even bigger problems in the world than Chinese mall owners badly mistreating wild animals.

But it says something bad about our humanity that this is allowed to go on, doesn't it?